https://trueman-triola.stories.email/i/222688563/rated-5-starsthe-gift-of-lifeRated 5 starsThe Gift of Life
“By Thriftbooks.com User, May 31, 2000
Rather than focus on what was said in the pages of Stuck in Neutral I want us to examine the heart of the author. Trueman doesn’t gloss over the bitter rock hard reality of life. He wants us to get real with our feelings, to lay bare our fears, our frustrations, to tell it like it is, speak the truth. Trueman did the same thing with his narrative poem Sheehan (the precursor to Stuck in Neutral), laying bare his vulnerability, daring to say what none of the rest of us would even dream of voicing to another, let alone print it in a book for the whole world to see. He has done the same with Stuck in Neutral.If you have read other reviews on this story you should know by now that Trueman is actually the father of such a child. Shawn is a severely mentally disabled victim of Cerebral Palsy. Or is he? That is the question. However, this isn’t “just” a story written in the voice of a helpless child trapped in an uncontrollable body; and neither is it “just” an attempt by the author to help the world to see through the eyes of the disabled. Both of those are indeed very worthy endeavors, especially by the father of such a child; but this story goes much deeper. Behind the pages of this story you will find a father who has been torn to shreds by circumstances beyond his control and still managed to come out on the other end a winner. And not just a winner because he managed to survive, but because he has done something for his son that nobody else on this whole earth could have done, not the medical doctors, not the psychiatrists and not the innumerable therapists who tried to help. His love for this child is what enabled him to place himself inside Shawn’s body, to mingle with his mind and muscles, to see through his eyes and create in him a whole new person from the inside out, by the power of the written word. Trueman brought his son back to life. That is the real miracle of this story. Please keep that in mind as you read the last few paragraphs and then you won’t have to wonder about the outcome. ELE. Read Less”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2102224.Sheehan
https://trueman-triola.stories.email/p/sheehan-i?utm_source=publication-search
Sometimes I forget what my life wouldn’t have become, what it has become, without my son Sheehan’s birth and the novel I wrote from that experience.
Life rarely gives us what we want and often gives us what we need, no matter how much we wish it wouldn’t.
IMO, there is no “meant to be.” Then again, even this is impossible to know.
Thanks for giving me this time and space to share this with you.